Indoor Sports

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 4, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 18.

There is a man over in Illinois, with apparently some kind of organization back of him, who believes that a great many of the social ills of our old world can be cured by providing proper games and sports for young men and women. He addresses considerable ridicule to the minister who does not see the value of the picture show, the “billiard table,” the “baseball game,” and other like amusements.

One of the greatest degenerating causes of this age is the fact that church people are allowing their morals to be broken down. They are reaching the place where they would make common amusements and pastimes a part of church work; and the practical working out of the plan is really to starve out the gospel, and give the major part of the attention to amusements that will draw the crowd.

But gathering a crowd to a church edifice under the attraction of amusement is no more a gospel work than is gathering them to some other building where amusement is the specialty. The work of the church is not to amuse people, but to lead them to salvation; and the minister or other church worker whose soul is aflame with the desire for the salvation of souls, readily finds that his work is on a very different plane from that of the one who dispenses fun and amusement to satisfy the follies of the age.

Rome knew how to amuse her people. Her sports and games attracted the vast multitudes. But this did not stop Rome from breaking to pieces under the weight of her degenerating vices. We need something besides games and sports to cure this world of its social ills. We need the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ; and the minister of God should absorb his energies in pressing home upon the conscience this great truth.